‘Hears From God’ Childrens Lesson on Samuel

BIG IDEA: I CAN HEAR GOD

AIM: The ‘Hears From God’ Childrens Lesson on Samuel is aimed at teaching the children that you are never too young to hear from God.

INTRO QUESTION: What do you think God sounds like?

SONG IDEAS:

1. ‘No Longer a Slave’ by Bethel Music
2. ‘Good Good Father’ by HouseFires II
3. ‘I Am a Friend of God’ by Shout Praises Kids

GAME IDEAS:

1. Tune! Play the beginning of a variety of songs and see who can name the most songs by only listening to the first few seconds.
2. What’s That Noise? Use the video of different sounds to test the children and see if they can recognize what the noises are. Ask children to write down their answers, or if playing as upfront game get the children to buzz in when they think they know the answer.
3. Blindfolded Call Out. Set obstacles around the room that players must avoid [paper on the floor, chairs, tables etc], blindfold one player and have another lead them though the obstacles by calling out.
4. Charades. Players use actions to communicate rather than words. The rest of the team must try to guess what the actions mean; a movie, book or character etc The team to guess the most things in the given time are the winning team.

BIG VERSE: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1a

 

SET the Scene:

Read 1 Samuel 3. Samuel had not heard the voice of God before, so he didn’t recognize the voice of God when God spoke to him in the middle of the night. Instead, Samuel believed it was Eli speaking ti him.

VIDEO IDEAS:

1. ‘The Lord Speaks to Samuel’ by Superbook
2. Samuel Hears God
3. ‘Young Samuel’ by Bibletoons
4. ‘Bibletoons Little Sammy’
5. Ears to Hear by Gracelink
6. Samuel Hears the Voice of God
7. Samuel and Eli – a puppet skit

SPOT the Simple Meaning:

1) GOD SPEAKS TO ME.

Share a story about how God spoke to you, or do an interview with someone that God has spoken to. 

Say: God speaks in lots of different ways. He speaks in different ways to different people. Yet the one way we already know that He has spoken is through the Word of the God – the bible. We know that the bible is true and that it is “god breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16) and so we can trust all that it says. God can speak to us through the bible; perhaps a word or a phrase will show us something about God and make us think or we read something and we know God is asking us to act. God doesn’t always speak in a loud crashing voice, sometimes He speaks to us in quiet ways too; in a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) or whisper..

God called out to Samuel three times. He called out “Samuel, Samuel!” (1 Samuel 3 v 4-10) Not just once or twice but three times. He really wanted to speak to Samuel! He wants to speak to you too! Are you listening? God is speaking all the time, but we need to have our eyes open and our ears ready to listen. You can ask God to help you to be ready to His voice.

2) I CAN HEAR GOD.

Make and wear some giant ears using the printable and a strip of card or buy and wear some giant plastic ears. 

Say: Samuel could hear God. God was speaking and Samuel could hear him! You can hear God too, if you really listen. How do we listen to God? We listen through prayer and reading the bible. We listen by saying to God “speak Lord, your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:10) and then waiting. We ask God to speak to us and then we wait.

If you have asked Jesus into your life then you have the Holy Spirit living within you (1 Corinthians 3:16). He will help you to hear His voice. He will remind you that He is present all the time. The Holy Spirit is the third person of God; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. He is the one that reminds us of things, leads us and guides us and shows us when we are going wrong. We can trust the Holy Spirit to speak to us each day.

You are never too young to hear from God. Samuel heard from God as a boy and you can hear from God – no matter what your age is! Age doesn’t matter to God, all that matters is that you are listening and you are ready to do what He asks you to do.

3) I CAN RECOGNIZE GOD’S VOICE

Record some people’s voices from you church – recognisable voices. Alternatively use some famous voices. Play the voices and see who can identify who they belong to. Record one person’s voice that is a stranger to everyone in the room. 

Say: [Play recognisable voices] It took time for Samuel to recognise God’s voice. In fact, Eli had to tell Samuel that it was God speaking to him. We might be concerned that we can’t hear God or worried that we won’t recognise His voice, but sometimes it takes time. In John 10:27 Jesus says “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” When we spend time with someone we know their voice. I’m sure you don’t have to think twice when you hear your mom or dad’s voice on the phone. You just recognise who is speaking because you have spent time with them and you know them.

[Play the random voice that nobody will recognise.] Who knows who this is? [Wait for no response] Nobody knows whose voice this is, because nobody knows the person. We haven’t spent time with them. It’s the same with our friendship with God. If He is our friend then we will spend time with Him, we will listen and learn to recognise His voice, just as Samuel did.

SEARCH the Scriptures:

The Ear Game. Get everyone into pairs and blindfold one person in each pair. The people that are blindfolded must try to find the hidden ears (download and print page 1 and page 2) around the room with the guidance of their un-blindfolded friend. On each of the ears is a different bible verse about hearing God. The friend must stand still and cannot look for the ears themselves. The pair that finds the most ears is the winning pair.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What would it be like if you couldn’t hear anything?
2. What would it be like if you could hear everything?
3. In ‘The Ear Game’ what was your favorite bible verse and why?
4. What do each of the bible verses mean? [You may want to find out what each says in their context.]
5. In what ways do people hear God?

SENSE How You Feel:

Imagine you are Samuel and Eli has told you that it is God that has been speaking to you. How do you feel?

1. Create some listening ears to remind the children that they can listen and hear God’s voice. Simply print off the printable, cut out the ears with their tabs out. Attach them to a strip of card. Cut out the title ‘I’m Listening!.’
2. Encourage children to create the listening wheel to think of all the times that they can listen to God throughout the day.

SEEK God:

Spend some time listening to what the Holy Spirit might be saying today. Put some quiet music on; perhaps the ‘No Longer a Slave’ song by Bethel Music. You could have lots of bibles around the room and some paper and markers for children to write or draw what they feel God is speaking to them.